First Day of 1st Grade

We are very thankful for a great first day of 1st grade! There is a lot more material to cover this year and a pretty drastic change from K-5. We'll be doing all the normal subjects: Bible, Reading, Phonics, English, Handwriting, Spelling, Math, Science and Heritage Studies, but I will also be teaching them two extra classes: basic music theory and an introductory class in Spanish. I am so excited for those!

If you sit back and think about the kids and their respective personalities, you can pretty much tell how they approached the day. Shaylen was up, dressed and ready to go very quickly. I call her my pop-tart. Marshall dragged himself out of bed and slowly accomplished what he needed to before breakfast. He's my slow riser.

They both were excited for school. That's the truth. However, Shaylen was eager to see and watch everything. She couldn't wait! She was up the stairs to the guest room and seated at her desk lickety-split! Marshall on the other hand fears change and/or unfamiliar situations. He crept up the stairs. He worried about what each new teacher would bring. Fortunately for him, he had two teachers this year that he also had from last year. That made the transition so much better for him. I watched his hesitation at the start of the new classes and then could see his shoulders relax when he realized the teachers weren't scary or out to get him.

I'm so thankful for the opportunity to be with the kids each day and watch them discover new things. It is a great privilege to be so involved in their little lives. Plus, I even got smooches from my students! Isn't that a nice perk? Can't wait to see what all the year holds.

JoAnn's From the Convenience of Home

It seems that whenever I get any sort of "dink" or "fun" money (Christmas or birthday money) the van automatically takes us to JoAnn Fabrics in Newington. Funny how that happens. I am able to print off 50% coupons from the web so purchasing fabric in order to make a skirt or dress is fairly inexpensive.

Marshall and Shaylen enjoy going with me. They love fingering all of the funky fabric. I had money leftover from my birthday (yes...I know July, but I want to make sure that I'm really going to like it before I buy it. It takes me a while.) This time, Marshall and Shaylen enjoyed finding all the animal print fabric. They would hold it up and say, "Look Mom! This one is a tiger!"

When we got home the kids were playing. I was in the basement printing off a bizillion pages for homeschooling (if you're a homeschool mom using BJU Press DVD's...it was the Mom's Minutes and supplemental pages. You know exactly what I mean. Grrrr). Marshall and Shaylen had two long tubes and they decided to take the blankets, roll them up and play "JoAnn's." It was hilarious! They would bring it upstairs, unroll it and ask, "So, what will you be making with this, hmmmm?" Then they would pretend to cut it and then roll it back up. It was so neat to listen to them use their imaginations.

Getting to Be So Big

There are so many reminders staring me in the face every day that Marshall and Shaylen are getting so big. Marshall has two big-boy teeth coming in, pants are getting shorter, Shaylen is reading (or trying to read) everything she sees and they're picking up more and more responsibilities at home.

I thought I would share some snapshots so you can see for yourself how big they are getting.

Helping Mommy make biscuits.

Reading a magazine that our neighbors gave us. Shaylen on "Crumb Patrol" under the kitchen table.

Helping Daddy bring in the trash (he helped empty wastebaskets and take out the trash too).

Marshall after his haircut on Monday.

She's Home!!!

Sunday morning we were delighted to see Matt & Jess Krupnek pop into our church for our morning services. Fortunately for them, they brought baby Gabe. If they hadn't they would have been in some serious HOT water with me. He is getting so big and is as cute as ever.

The Krupneks were headed down to Boston to pick Janelle up from the airport at 1:30. I had asked Taigen if there was any way we could possibly go after church to see Janelle, but he assured me that there was little time. Little did I know that there was a surprise up his sleeve...and the Krupneks'. I'm so oblivious. Even the Krupneks left church that morning promising that they would do their best to drive down with Janelle in the coming weeks so that we could all see her. See how sneaky my friends are? Either that or do I just have "clueless" written on my forehead?

Sunday night after our busy (but good) day at church Taigen and I snuggled with the kids on the king-sized bed and planned out the next day. We had several things we needed to get done: grocery shopping and a haircut for Marshall to name two, but we also planned in lots of games, reading, a dinner filled with favorites and even homemade milkshakes. Sounded really good.

Monday morning we woke up and Taigen encouraged me to take a nice long shower while he fed the kids breakfast. What a guy! (Yeah...he's scheming!) When the doorbell rang shortly after I came downstairs, I told Taigen to answer it. I was in my sweatpants and my hair was still wet. When I didn't hear any salutations at the door nor any conversation, I peeked around the corner. What did I see? Janelle was walking in my door! I just about fainted with joy! She was here and standing behind her, beaming, was the sneaky Jessica Krupnek.

It was awesome seeing Janelle after almost a year. The kids just ate her up. It didn't take long for Janelle to settle back into her old spot, reading and telling the kids stories, loving them to pieces, chasing after them and snuggling.

I don't remember what was actually on the docket for Monday morning, but it got joyfully set aside for our special guests.

The afternoon & evening did hold lots of games, reading, a special dinner and then the long-awaited milkshakes, but I don't think anything topped having Janelle home.

Apparently, Today is the Day to Fly

Today is a beeeeeautiful day here in NH! The doors are open! The windows are open! The sun is shining. A breeze is blowing. It's wonderful!

Since Taigen is away today playing at the "Hole-y Land" (i.e. The Heritage Invitational Golf Tournament), I decided to do something special with the kids. First we went on a walk. I should've taken the camera because we were quite the sight. Shaylen was pushing her baby in a pink stroller and Marshall was walking around with his wooden sword and shield that he got after VBS(thanks to Brutus, uh...Mr. Dustin).

Janelle is on a plane headed for home as I type. When we prayed before breakfast this morning Shaylen prayed for her flight to be safe. "...And help there to be no emergencies." While we were on our walk we must've seen at least 5 different airplanes. I kid you not, with each one Marshall stopped, shielded his eyes and looked up asking, "Is that Auntie Janellee's airplane?" The answer was the same each time but he continued asking. Can you tell what's on his mind?

After our walk I drove the kids over to the itsy-bitsy airport that's not too far from us. We enjoyed watching 10 different planes land and 2 take off within the space of an hour. The kids had a blast and I enjoyed watching their excitement.

Encouraging Words

Those of you who read the blog frequently know that Marshall and Shaylen love their teenage babysitter Ellen. Currently she is away at violin "camp" (of sorts). Actually it is more glorified than that. She has to audition for it and only a select few get to attend. This is the second year that she gets to go. She's that good. She'll be away for two weeks so I thought it would be a good idea for the kids to write her to let her know they missed her.

Janelle had given us some African animal stamps a long time ago so I got those out, put aprons on the kids and allowed them to stamp to their hearts' content. The results were two very cute cards and two very inky kids! It was messy but so much fun. I'm sure Ellen will love receiving them.

Speaking of Janelle...she's heading home from Zambia on Saturday!!! Her flight will arrive on Sunday afternoon at 1:30. Pray for safe travels. I cannot wait to see her and neither can Marshall and Shaylen. It's been a long time and they're ready to be "loved to pieces."

The School Year Approacheth

I'm thinking our cooler & wetter weather this summer made the summer fly by! Either that or my calendar really didn't relent in the various and sundry activities that come up on a daily basis. Whichever it was, it is finally August and I've begun preparations for Marshall and Shaylen's first grade year. (I actually ordered stuff months ago...it's just been sitting in storage.)

I've started punching out manipulatives, tearing out workbook pages and arranging my files. In fact, I have lesson plans done for the first week and the contents for their folders already set aside as well! There's something else up my sleeve for the classroom, but I am hesitant to write about it until plans are finalized. Curious? Well, you'll just have to wait and see. You know me. When/if it takes place, I'll have camera in hand, ready to post the pics here. We've tentatively set a start date for August 17th.

Marshall and Shaylen have been playing school, VBS, and church like crazy here at home. I'm hearing all of the VBS songs and listening to them quote verses that they memorized throughout that week. For school, they've been arranging all of their stuffed animals, pulling tons of books off the shelf and writing out lessons. It's quite humorous to sit and listen to them go on and on. When they play "church" they sing all five verses of O For A Thousand Tongues to Sing consecutively! It's now their favorite. One day, I'll have them sing it for the camera so you can hear it for yourself.

On another note: What is this world coming to? I've received word that my sister is now going to be starting a blog and Taigen finally broke down and got a Facebook account! That means he'll stop mooching off of mine I guess. Glad I can be a good influence on these two and catch them up with the rest of the 21st century. Tee Hee!

It's Finally Out

While Marshall's first tooth had no problem falling out, this second one decided to hang on for dear life! Yuck. By this morning you could see the entire bottom front of the tooth hanging out of the gums. Do you remember my particular distaste for pulling teeth? Alas, the call of motherhood overruled because guess who ended up pulling the stubborn thing out? Yup. Me, that's who.

It took us a while, but after much crying, prodding, wiggling and probably half a roll of toilet paper later, the tooth finally came out this afternoon. I think the emotional mess leading up to it was a lot more dramatic than the actual pulling. Once Marshall realized that it was gone, he started laughing with great enthusiasm. So did I! Surprisingly, I didn't get squeamish at all the yuckiness. I think I was just so eager to have it out!

Marshall's reward was a fudgesicle. Mine? Well, it was a huge, long process, but I think I've earned the trust of my son. If you throw in a Strawberry Frappucino with that, I won't argue.

Soakin' In the Sun

It is a very hot week here in New Hampshire. What a difference between earlier this summer. We're finally getting our summer heat. Not only has it been hot, but humid as well. I'm always thankful for those A/C units that keep things comfortable.

On Monday, Taigen and I cleaned up the house a bit, ran some errands and then pulled out the vehicles so that they could get washed. We promised the kids that when all was done, they could run through the sprinkler. They could hardly wait!

Attention Ladies!

So rarely do I look to the media for advice on anything. However, this is an interesting article.

"Dressing too sexy can also have psychological effects on your peers, according to Peter Glick, a professor of psychology at Lawrence University in
Wisconsin."

Duh.

Wrapping Things Up

Mom's three week visit is coming to a close. She leaves at O'Dark Thirty tomorrow morning out of Boston. What a nice visit it has been!

One of my dear friends here at Heritage sent me a sweet email when she found out that Mom was coming. She was talking about how nice it was that we would get to see Mom. My friend lost her mother years ago and so she said in her email that if she could give any advice, it would be to take lots of pictures while we can.

That was exactly on my agenda for this visit. I have a special frame up in the guest room that our friend Mike Bowman made out of leather. On one side, I have a picture of Sherry with the kids and on the other, Mom with the kids. Each time they come for a visit, I try to get updated photos.

Yesterday's weather was nice so we went outside and snapped up quite a few. It was hard winnowing them down to the select few that we were actually going to keep, but I'm happy with the end results. Mom's ordered quite a few and I'll get some ordered for my special frame here soon.

"Rome: Paul and the Underground Church" Our VBS Week

Whew! It's been a very busy week, but oh so good! This was our annual VBS week. Our theme this year was Rome: Paul and the Underground Church.

There was a ton of preparation that went into the planning of VBS and then even more time went into decorating various areas of our church building in order to make it Rome-like. It looked awesome and the kids loved it. Believe it or not, many kids liked the super-dark cave where the "Christians" that were worshipping "underground" were. It was a classroom that had it's windows darkened and black felt and plastic over all of the walls. It was extremely dark. My friend, Sue, and I were the ones in there doing the "drama." We had battery operated candles and even a sound machine that we turned on in order to imitate trickling water. The effect was really cool.

We're rejoicing that we had a great turnout this year. We had more kids the first day than we did on our highest-attended day from last year. I think the majority of those kids were in Marshall and Shaylen's class. There were approximately (give or take one or two)15 kids each day in that class (4 year olds-1st grade). Of those 15, only three were our church kids: Marshall and Shaylen and another little girl. It was good for Marshall and Shaylen to meet new friends!

Taigen was the apostle Paul this week, chained to a Roman guard (Brutus). He would tell the children important messages to then convey to those of us in the Underground Church. It was amazing how much of his messages the children would remember and were eager to share with us! What fun! Our VBS director did a fabulous job organizing everything. All in all, I think things went smoothly.

The closing program will be Sunday night. The classes will get up and sing, quote verses and explain what they learned this week. We are also eager to hear how much money was raised in the kids' penny offering for missionaries who are working in areas of world where Christians are still being persecuted for their faith. Hopefully Taigen will be able to get a video of Marshall and Shaylen for us to enjoy. I'll be at the piano so I'll be eager to see it as well.

Sunshine, Water and Small (Literally) Disappointments

Mom had gone with us to Walmart on Monday and purchased (what we thought) a pool big enough for the kids to have a considerable amount of fun in this summer. The picture was very deceiving (Photoshop anyone?) and the pool was surprisingly small. We'll take the full blame because the dimensions were clearly written on the box, but still it was disappointing to see the puny thing all blown up and eagerly awaiting Oompa-Loompa children or something similarly small. Thankfully, it wasn't very expensive (now I know why) and maybe we can turn around and sell it on Craigslist or something.

The saying goes though, "When life gives you a lemon, make lemonade." We decided to make it work for us since I had taken all the effort to blow it all up. We took off the accompanying slide (which collapsed under the weight of the kids when they tried to climb it) and jimmy-rigged our big water slide near it so they could slide down into the pool.

The kids had a blast in the warmth of Tuesday. The hose water seemed a bit colder than the ocean because they were soon shivering, but not so cold that they complained about it. Mom was howling at their reactions as I pushed them down the slide into the frigid waters. I wasn't able to capture that on camera, but I got some fun shots of the kids anyway.

Monday's Outing

When I woke up Marshall on Monday morning, the first words out of his mouth were, "Today is the day we get to go to the beach!" It was determined later of last week that when things warmed up, we needed to get Mom to the beach for a considerable amount of time. What good would a trip all the way from Alaska be if she didn't get to put her toes in the Atlantic?

The weather was going to be perfect and we planned on doing this and that in the morning and heading off later in the afternoon.

Marshall, Shaylen and Grammie immediately started jumping the waves while Taigen decided to dig a huge hole near the wall for Marshall to play in. The hole was so big and deep it attracted the attention of all the other kids around. In fact, at one point, Taigen had five kids (including M&S) looking down on him saying, "Whoa! That's a cool hole!" I got this picture at one point with Shaylen helping in the process. It was hilarious to see her try and get back out.

It was a relaxing evening. We watched the tide go out, enjoyed our picnic dinner and the time spent as a family.

Feline Friend

For a couple of weeks now we've had a little kitty visiting us in our backyard. Often when I'm out picking chives or refilling the bird feeder I see him/her waiting at the edge of the woods. It's got its eyes on the chipmunks, squirrels or birds.

Thursday when we were outside, I saw her and decided to talk to her. She responded and came closer. I pet her and she was very friendly. She's well cared for, so she's not a stray, but she decided to hang out at our house all day.

Marshall & Shaylen loved her and even named her Smudges. I like the idea of a pet that comes to visit, is friendly and allows my kids to pet her and talk to her AND then goes back home. It's all the benefits of a pet without all the work!

Ahhhhhhhhhhh!

What is that great big, bright sphere in the sky? It's the sun!

Ahhhhhhhh! It feels sooooo good!

More Pics of our Special Guests

Let's Start At the Very Beginning

On Thursday of last week Jason, Joni, Enzo and Julia were able to come up to see us and stay for the weekend. We were excited to see them especially today because they found out what this next baby is going to be: a girl! (This baby is due date is Dec. 3rd! Wouldn't it be nice if she was just two days late?) Jason was able to take some time off of work and go golfing with Mike Bowman, Paul Chesebrough and Taigen on Friday morning so they just decided to extend their stay and come on Thursday night. That was awesome because it meant I got to spend more time with Joni and the kids! Marshall and Shaylen were so excited to see their dear friends. That was apparent by all four of them disappearing upstairs the moment they arrived.

The weather cooperated for the most part and we were able to take all of the kids outside to play. Joni played pitcher and helped Marshall and Shaylen actually hit the ball, Jason and Taigen brushed up on their horseshoe throwing skills and the kids played referees and supportive fans at the same time.

On Saturday, we hosted a picnic with several families from Maine and New Hampshire (and Mass. i.e. the Pileggis). I'm thinking there were about 35 people there. We had to dodge a few raindrops, but not so much that it ruined our BBQ!

The guys played horseshoes and Bocci ball and the ladies got to sit and chat. The kids were running and playing all around. There was great food, wonderful fellowship and fireworks! Of course, they weren't huge to the grown-ups, but to the kids (and the kids-at-heart) they were a big deal. Of course, for those of you who know our kids, they were too loud!

All too soon it was time to wrap things up. It was time to bathe the kids and get them ready for Sunday. We surely enjoyed our time with all of our friends.

God has blessed us with such wonderful friends. We are so thankful for all of them.

Blogging From the Great Outdoors

Our computer was dying a slow and painful death. We would ask it to do something and it would take minutes, lo-o-o-o-ong minutes to allow to think of what it needed to do. Can you imagine my frustration at trying to work or blog? It was like functioning on dial-up for everything, not just surfing the net. I think I have a few more gray hairs because of it. I asked Taigen if it was possible for a computer to make you want to cry and throw it out the window at the same time? Something HAD to be done. After asking several of our computer friends what the issue could be, we finally determined that the computer was old. It was a processor problem.

Thankfully we knew it was something like this was coming and had already figured that we would need to get a new computer.

Taigen was able to go and get us a laptop with a wireless set-up and I am currently blogging from the great outdoors. What a luxury! The kids are able to play and I am able to finally get this blog caught up. There is so much to write about. Stay tuned.

Surprise! Surprise!

Just recently, I've been receiving phone calls from my sister. Now normally she wants to yak with me for a considerable amount of time, but this time she would ask for Taigen. So, I knew something was up. Finally I asked Taigen, "Is Steph coming with all five kids?" Taigen replied, "No, she's not." Not giving up, I asked, "Is my mom coming?"

"I didn't say that."
"Taigen, is my mom coming?"
Sigh. "Yes, she's coming, but it was supposed to be a surprise." My nosy-ness spoiled the surprise, but that motivated me to be a little more pro-active in cleaning up the guest room after our friends, the Pileggi's, left.

So, as I type, my mom is sitting here reading to the kids. Wasn't that nice of her to fly all that way for my birthday? Mom arrived here last night and has been attempting to spoil the kids rotten ever since.

I'll be sure to post pictures here in a couple of days.